


Translation

by SleepsWithCoyotes



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-03
Updated: 2016-03-03
Packaged: 2018-05-24 13:50:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6155707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepsWithCoyotes/pseuds/SleepsWithCoyotes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cecil has no idea of the terror that has been unleashed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Translation

**Author's Note:**

> Archiving old fic from 2013 - I actually haven't listened since ep 33, from the looks of things, so everything I post will likely be terribly non-canon-compliant. No comment spoilers, please--I do intend to get caught up!

"...and that has been traffic," Cecil says, glancing over as the new intern cracks open the door and slips inside despite the glowing On Air light. She seems more confused than alarmed, so casual he nearly makes a note to give her a stern talking-to about live broadcast protocols, only she's carrying in a breaking news report. Maybe she's never seen one before; that would certainly explain it.

"This just in," he says, reaching out and making a gimme hand without turning away from the mic. "A news bulletin from the Sheriff's Secret Police, handed to me just now by Intern Harriet. It appears," he begins, stalling for time as his eyes rake the blocky, sans-serif text, "that a new monolith has appeared in town, this time in the playground at the Night Vale Elementary School. It's approximately twelve feet tall, indigo shading to black, hums in twenty-four-part harmony and smells like stale birthdays.

"According to reports," he adds as the text on the page starts scrolling, "three children have already gone missing and are presumed...vaporized," he reads, allowing only the faintest catch in his voice, "as their personal effects remained in a heap where the children were last spotted. As for the hooded figure that usually lurks under the slide, I've just received confirmation that a black robe _has_ been found, but police are refusing to look under it as it appears to be squirming loathsomely."

Well, honestly. What do they expect? Though he _is_ a little impressed that it occurred to anyone to peek under a hooded figure's robe in the first place.

The text on the printout keeps scrolling, nudging him back to his duties. "Fortunately, dear listeners, it appears that--" It's his job to deliver the news--unflappably, _comfortingly_ \--and he allows not the barest hitch this time. Once in a broadcast is enough. "--Carlos and his team of scientists happened to be in the area, investigating the nonexistent house in the Desert Creek development. They have already arrived on the scene, and are investigating from the protective cordon the Sheriff's Secret Police have established. According to one scientist," he reads with his heart in his mouth, wondering why it's not Carlos being quoted this time, and where _is_ he, "the monolith appears to be putting out a strange radiation in measurable waves that correspond to the volume of the humming. 'There's a distinct pattern to the oscillations,' this scientist informs us. 'They were growing weaker when we first started monitoring, but now they appear to be gaining in oh Jesus boss get out of...there.'"

He stares at the page as it scrolls through a messy jumble of shouts and curses. The breaking news looks nearly broken, too many people talking over each other, and _all_ of it must be important or it wouldn't be feeding live. He catches hints of the disaster, things like, _That can't be_ and _How did it_ and _Oh God, the **children** ,_ but the text just keeps skipping and snapping off in the middle. It only settles when someone speaking in big block letters shouts, _CARLOS. OVER HERE, BOY. YOU'LL CONTAMINATE THE DATA._

Cecil sags in his chair, one hand clapped over his mouth, not sure whether it's a relieved laugh or a shaky sob that wants to escape. Carlos is alive.

A new line of text scrolls up slowly, almost hesitantly.

_Oh, God,_ someone is saying. _What do we tell Cecil?_

_"Intern Harriet!"_ he yells, forgetting for a moment that she's still in the booth. "Take the mic!"

He's sat there before and scrolled his way through Carlos' _death,_ but he'll be damned if he does it twice. Never again. Let them fire him; he can't lose Carlos a second time.

He runs outside to his car, palms stinging from how hard he hits the front door on his way out. The radio comes up as he turns the key in the ignition, and he winces to hear Harriet's wavering voice. Station Management is not going to be pleased. " _Um,"_ she stammers, _"hello, Night Vale. This, uh, this is Intern Harriet filling in for Cecil, who is no doubt on his way to do a live investigation of this, um_...thing. _Leaving me. Here. With all these buttons and switches I have_ no idea _how to work. Sooooo...if you or anybody you know has worked at one of our other local stations, maybe you could shoot me an email at--"_

Cecil winces as he turns off the radio. He knows he should have spent more time shouting through the door outside Management's office. So what if their interns never seem to last long enough to really learn the trade? They could at least let him _try._

He'll probably have a new intern in the morning, and he hopes Carlos will forgive him. He knows Carlos thinks Cecil puts him on impossibly high pedestals, but Carlos is just as guilty. He thinks Cecil is selfless, but he's not. He's really, really not.

He knows Night Vale will forgive him anyway.

Part of his contract with the station includes stop sign immunity, and he exploits that to the fullest as he barrels his way to the school. He's well over the speed limit the entire way, and he doesn't have any immunity for that, but today the blue cruisers and the friendly black vans seem inclined to look the other way. He's not sure what he'd do if anyone tried to stop him.

He can see the monolith and hear the low hum of its woven voices from three blocks away. The police still have the streets near the school blocked off, and Cecil isn't the first panicked listener to arrive. It's mostly the parents who are getting too old to try, try again, and he doesn't begrudge them their fear except that he needs to see Carlos _now._ Spotting a huddle of white-coated figures leaves him weak with relief, and he shoves his way through the crowd, a cold ball of ice growing in his stomach when he realizes the scientists are all crouched or bending over, looking _down_ at something. Has Carlos been hurt? Is he lying there injured? And why isn't anyone _doing_ anything?

"Carlos?" he calls when he gets close enough, trying to sound calm. People like it when he sounds calm. It makes them feel calm as well, and he suspects that's something they all need at the moment. "Is everything all right?"

Carlos' team all look up with the eerie synchronicity of the City Council, but they don't look nearly as self-assured. Mostly they look worried. Morris clears his throat, one hand scrubbing nervously through his short, usually-neat hair. "Cecil," he says and then stops, glancing down at something in the middle of their tight huddle.

There's a boy standing there with enormous dark eyes and flawless caramel skin, his black hair a tousled promise of future perfection. He's also barefoot, practically swimming in an unassuming blue dress shirt and holding a lab coat with too-familiar singes along the cuffs and right lapel tightly around himself.

"Carlos...?" Cecil asks, voice trembling in disbelief.

The boy stares at him solemnly before finally giving a tiny nod.

Cecil looks wildly at the other scientists, eyes begging an explanation. "What--what happened? How did...?"

"We think it was the monolith," Morris says with a sigh. "It's been giving off a kind of radiation we haven't seen before that comes and goes in waves. The waves were getting weaker when we first arrived, but then they started picking up strength again. At the height of the wave, it gave off a pulse that only seems to affect...biological entities." None of the scientists say 'human' anymore. Cecil wonders sometimes why that is. "If the boss' current state can be taken as a yardstick, it appears to be removing approximately a quarter-century from a person's chronological age."

"The children," Cecil says abruptly, realizing he understands the horrified remark he'd read in the news bulletin.

Morris nods slowly. "They didn't have twenty-odd years to burn."

Not vaporized, then, just...snuffed out of existence. He hopes it was painless, but Carlos' huge eyes and ominous silence seem to suggest otherwise.

Morris shrugs heavily. "At least we got him clear before that thing could hit him again."

"You...said he'd contaminate the data," Cecil remembers. He's sure, somehow, that it was Morris.

Who grins, glancing down at Carlos and ruffling his adorably wayward locks with paternal fondness. "And he came right over," Morris says proudly. "Just look at him--a first-class scientist already."

Carlos makes owl eyes at the man and then bursts into a shy little grin that melts Cecil's heart instantly. It's just that he's a little distracted by the sick twisting of his gut, the little part of his mind that insists on screaming in despair. They've only had a year together, _really_ together. How can this be happening?

"Anyway," Morris says determinedly, "it may take a little while to fix this with our heavy-hitter out of the action, but--"

"Fix it?" Cecil echoes, latching on to the faint hope thrown his way with both hands. "You can fix this?"

"What science has brought together, let no man put asunder," Lindquist pipes up with an encouraging grin.

"What he means," Reilly says repressively, "is that it's not like we're dealing with black magic here. That thing was putting out radiation, and that's a force we can work with." She sounds so certain, Cecil doesn't want to argue with her. It's just....

"Are you sure?" he asks, his voice barely a whisper.

Reilly's green eyes narrow, and she smiles like she's just picked up a thrown gauntlet at the Spring Fling Grudge Match.

"Positive," she says.

Cecil sags with relief. He just needs to be patient, then, and in the meantime...actually, he has no idea what to do in the meantime. He's good with children, but he and Carlos have been dating for a year, living together for nearly six months, and there's no way this won't be incredibly awkward.

He'll manage, though. He always does.

The first order of business will be to get miniature Carlos a tiny little lab coat. They're surprisingly popular with the children these days, and he knows just where to pick one up on their way home.

The first snag comes when he mentions this to the others.

"Er," Morris says in the uneasy silence that follows. "I'm...not sure that's the best idea."

"The lab coat?" Cecil asks, bewildered.

"No, uh...I don't think you're quite...equipped to deal with Carlos in his current state, I'm afraid." Morris rubs the back of his neck with a grimace, casting a pleading glance at the others, but they only give him innocent, trusting looks that say they know he'll handle the situation just beautifully. "Listen. This is not Carlos the adult."

"I know that," Cecil protests, only to feel the bottom of his stomach drop out when he realizes what the problem might be. He isn't sure whether he wants to punch Morris or be violently ill. "You don't think I'd--"

Morris--as well as the others--turns pale. "What? No! It's not--Jesus!"

Borowicz steps forward then, shaking her head. Her mousy hair is pulled back today in a careless bun, loose tendrils sticking out all over, but her hazel eyes are steady as she peers up at him over the rims of her glasses. "Cecil," she says calmly. She's very good at calm. "What Morris is trying to say is that you're used to Carlos the genius scientist. What we'd all like to know is whether you have any experience in dealing with a genius child."

He shakes his head. It's not a _no,_ exactly; he's just not sure why it matters.

Borowicz sighs. "Does the school system in Night Vale even have Gifted and Talented classes?"

Cecil's eyes go wide. "Gifted _and_ Talented?" he echoes. "You put your mages and your psionics in the same classrooms?" He's not sure whether he's more aghast or impressed. The students who survived a course like that would have to be prodigies.

"No, Cecil," Borowicz says patiently. "I mean in a purely rational sense. Intelligence," she explains when he shakes his head again. "Intelligence _on par_ with sorcery," she adds, seeing that he still isn't getting it.

Cecil blinks. "Oh," he says softly, feeling again the sheer wonder of Carlos' very existence and the helpless rush of grateful disbelief that Carlos wants _him._

"Exactly," Borowicz says firmly. "Carlos the Scientist knows you. He likes you. He also has twenty-some years of social conditioning that Carlos the Child does not. If you're _lucky,_ " she stresses with utter seriousness, "Carlos the Child will decide you're well-meaning but harmless. If you're _very_ lucky, he'll decide he likes you enough to feel a certain responsibility for you."

"And...if I'm not lucky?"

_"You don't want to know,"_ Borowicz says grimly, and it sends a shudder down his spine. Carlos is brilliant; he knows that. And he can just about imagine what all that brilliance coupled with an unformed concept of ethics, morality, and state and local laws might entail, only he's pretty sure there's a breaking news report going out right now reminding all of Night Vale to _stop thinking about that._ They wouldn't want to give the boy ideas.

"Can I...can I at least see him?" he asks humbly. Time was he rarely got to see Carlos in person, but he's long out of the habit of self-denial.

Borowicz looks shocked. "Well, of course! We're not trying to _separate_ you," she assures him quickly. "It's just that you have no idea of the terror that may have been unleashed."

It's distinctly odd to hear one of Carlos' scientists delivering a line that is usually Cecil's, but he can tell she means it. There's only one thing his mind snags on, refusing to let go. "May?"

Morris chuckles, tipping his head towards the boy who's been so quiet, Cecil has nearly forgotten he's there...except, of course, that that would be impossible. "Night Vale," Morris says with a hint of fondness he's never shown before, "is a young scientist's dream. It may even be enough to keep him entertained and out of trouble."

Carlos has been so quiet because he is _busy._ He's gotten a set of jeweler's screwdrivers from somewhere--Cecil suspects Lindquist, who is crouching right beside him--and has dismantled someone's digital stopwatch. The two are wearing identical looks of rapt fascination as Carlos pokes and prods at the membranous sac they find inside, though Carlos stops when an annoyed, misshapen eye opens in the mass and bares a single tooth at him. It's an incisor.

"Gross," Carlos pronounces.

He sounds entirely pleased.

***

Cecil knows Carlos--the adult version--doesn't think much of Night Vale's collective parenting skills, but he's not sure the scientific method is much different. After a stop to acquire appropriate clothing--including the child-sized lab coat; Cecil was most insistent on that--the scientists all troop back to the lab, taking Carlos and Cecil along with them. Cecil assumes he's being included by default; since the very first date, the entire team has treated him as a sort of extension of Carlos. They like him...he thinks...and it's nice that they no longer whip out clipboards and illegal writing implements when they see him, but sometimes he thinks that the moment they stopped studying him they lost all interest in him except as a necessary accessory to Carlos.

It's not unkindly meant; he suspects they think they're being polite. He's heard the nervous tension in Carlos' voice as he assures Cecil that his more scientific personal queries are _not_ an attempt at putting him under glass, that he wants to study Cecil as a boyfriend would, not as a soulless government drone in a secret laboratory that practices vivisection as a _prelude_ to scientific inquiry. And then Cecil usually has to kiss him back to a better humor.

Still. He doesn't want to see that sort of...pleasant indifference aimed at his Carlos. Genius or not, young psyches are delicate. Cecil wants to make certain Carlos is safe.

Someone, apparently, has to.

"Are you sure he should be--oh, dear," he says helplessly as he watches Carlos clamber up to perch on a tall stool, dumping an armload of clocks across an empty worktable.

"It's fine," Morris assures him, hooking the blinking, chirping device Carlos had been carrying at the time of the incident into one of the lab computers. Morris has his back to Carlos, so Cecil can't understand how things can possibly be _fine,_ but Morris doesn't seem worried. "We keep all the really dangerous stuff in the basement," Morris adds with a shrug, "and Carlos here can't reach the keypad for the lock."

"He could bring a chair!"

Morris sobers all at once. "Please don't bring common sense into this," he says in a low, warning voice. "Trying to build hoverboots will _slow him down._ "

Cecil swallows hard and decides to just...go over and supervise. Surely neither of them can get in much trouble that way.

Carlos doesn't look up when Cecil sits down beside him, but he ducks his head in that way he has when he's concentrating on his peripheral vision and doesn't want to seem rude. His little hands never falter as he busily unscrews a back here and pries open a faceplate there. Cecil's throat closes as he realizes that Carlos has already done this once before and simply doesn't remember.

"What are you doing?" he asks after a moment, watching Carlos arrange his disassembled parts in a logical fashion to one side.

Dark eyes glance his way, but the tiny crease between wispy, dark brows matches his disappointed tone. "Working," he says glumly--but respectfully, Cecil notices. Carlos always tries to be polite, even when he's completely at a loss.

Cecil can't understand the faint slump to thin shoulders or the resigned way he's being ignored, unless...he's asked the wrong question. Asked an _obvious_ question, the way adults do when they're only humoring a small person and not treating them like the potential deadly predator they are.

"Sorry, I meant--what are you looking for?" he tries again.

This is the right question.

He's not sure he understands a fraction of what Carlos babbles at him, electric in his enthusiasm--only not literally electric, because Cecil would have definite objections to that. He knows it has something to do with the innards of the clocks Carlos is dismantling, but he's not sure what. All he knows is that Carlos isn't offended that Cecil clearly has no idea what was just said because Carlos grins at him, patient and friendly, and offers him a screwdriver.

"Do you want to help?"

"I would love to," Cecil replies.

This is the right answer.

***

Cecil starts when Morris claps him lightly on the shoulder, saying, "Well, we'd better call it a night. Best go back to your place so you can pack a bag."

Cecil blinks foolishly and briefly wishes for a clock they haven't disassembled. He's completely lost track of time. "What?"

"Don't worry," Morris says with a chuckle, "the others will keep working, but the half-pint here should be in bed."

"I'm not tired," Carlos protests without looking up from his experiment. "Sir," he adds as if it's expected of him.

Cecil waits for an argument to start, but Morris just arches a brow. "Are you aware of the effects of REM sleep on declarative and procedural memory?"

Carlos glances hesitantly over one shoulder. There's a smudge of translucent grey slime across the bridge of his stubby nose, but he doesn't seem to notice. "It makes them worse?" he replies hopefully.

Morris snorts. "Try 'better.' Sleep and get smarter, grasshopper. You can save the world tomorrow."

"All right," Carlos sighs, rubbing at tired eyes. He freezes in surprise when Cecil wipes the slime streak away with the side of his thumb, but then he drops his hands and tilts his face towards Cecil obligingly.

Morris works hard at choking back a laugh, but his eyes are lit with amusement. "You don't mind staying at my place until this is fixed, do you?" he asks, hunching a shoulder at Cecil's start. "It's closer to the lab, and...well, I'm never there anyway, so it's practically science-proofed already."

He doesn't say child-proofed, but Carlos rolls his eyes as if he understood just fine.

"You mean both of us?" Cecil asks, just to be sure.

He's not expecting Carlos to look stricken, turning to Morris with blatant pleading in his eyes. "I can't stay with Cecil?"

"You're both staying with me," Morris announces, but the smile he gives Carlos is knowing. "And you know that wouldn't be fair."

Carlos ducks his head. "I wouldn't mess with Cecil," he mumbles. "He's my friend."

"Hugs?" Cecil asks, voice strangled with glee. "Please tell me spontaneous hugging is acceptable here, or I will _explode._ "

Morris grins. "Have at it," he says.

Carlos flails a little as he gets the stuffing squeezed out of him, but overall he takes it with good grace.

Cecil packs a bag for himself and toiletries for Carlos, who has insisted on riding with him as he follows Morris. This younger version of the man he adores is silent and polite, clearly on his best behavior, which Cecil finds a little unsettling. Carlos is generally only this quiet when he's asleep, sometimes not even then. He wants to ask if Carlos liked the lab, if he had fun today, but he suspects neither of those questions will go over well. Instead he asks, "Did you find what you were looking for?"

Carlos brightens at once. "Not yet," he says, "but I think I've got an idea. I just have to figure out how to stick them together, and then I'm going to need a really big battery. Do you know what kind of glue works on membranes?"

"Sorry," Cecil says, feeling a little out of his depth but back on firmer footing because of it. Carlos often has that effect on him; he's been assured that it's mutual. "Borowicz might know; she does biology things."

"Bioanthropology," Carlos says, nodding enthusiastically. "She looks at how people are built now and tries to figure out how they got that way," he explains before Cecil can even wonder. "Is she going to study me?" Carlos asks then, hunching his shoulders in a little. For the first time all day he sounds afraid.

"What?" The question is automatic, but Carlos eyes him shrewdly for a long moment, tensing to bolt before sagging again. Whatever he sees or doesn't see in Cecil's startled eyes is enough to calm him.

"I know I'm not supposed to be a kid," Carlos admits, peering uncertainly up at Cecil. "I was there when you were talking about it, you know. I'm not _deaf_ ," he adds with a sad little smile. "And I know you're all trying to fix me, but I also know there's a lot of people who wouldn't mind being young again, so I just...."

Watching Carlos fist his hands on the seatbelt Cecil insisted he wear, Cecil thinks for the first time that he truly _understands_ how the team's friendly neglect could be a sign of more than the very smart making concessions for their leader's dreadful choice of mate. The idea of anyone putting Carlos under a microscope, poking and prying to see what makes him tick, has Cecil wanting to find the nearest bloodstone circle and bestow unholy offerings on any ungodly master he can get on the line.

He isn't going to _lie_ to Carlos, though, even to make him feel better.

"If she does study you," he promises, "it'll only be as a friend. To make you better."

Carlos gives him another solemn look, as if weighing his words or his sincerity, but finally he nods. "Okay," he says. And then: "You should probably watch the road again; we've been driving on the wrong side for a block."

Cecil curses, jerking the wheel over just as he sees Morris glance up at his rear view mirror and tap out a panicked honk. Carlos _giggles._

Damn it, he misses his boyfriend, but this version of Carlos is more adorable than a box of cats. He almost asks whether Carlos has ever considered cloning himself before he remembers that that never ends well.

Morris has a guest room he's never quite finished turning into an office, but in the midst of a haphazard jumble of furniture, there's a bed Carlos looks a little lost in. It's been a while since Cecil himself was a child, but he still remembers the drill. While Carlos and Morris look on in bemusement, he prowls the dark corners of the room, ripping open the closet door violently and growling a warning to the shadows under the bed, just like his mother used to do. It's a real worry that Morris doesn't own a mace or even a baseball bat, but Cecil fetches Carlos a butcher knife from the kitchen to hide under his pillow and pauses to stroke his perfectly mussed hair flat.

"Goodnight, Carlos," he says softly, like he does every night.

Carlos grins up at him, almost like he remembers, and they finish it together. _"Goodnight."_

He takes the couch only after turning it completely around to face the back of the house. He can be down that hall at the first hint of a slither or creak of closet hinges, and he's always been a light sleeper. Baseball bat or no baseball bat, nothing will touch his Carlos, not tonight.

And if he wakes a little after two to a warm, bony shape clambering onto his chest, all knees and elbows and smelling of _his his his,_ he merely hums contentedly and goes right back to sleep.

***

"Well," Borowicz says the next morning, sleepless and puzzled, "I have some Dermabond, but it's more for soft tissues than your, er, clock parts."

"Oh," Carlos says, dropping his eyes and chewing thoughtfully on his lower lip.

Cecil has already discovered that _no one_ is immune.

"Why don't you talk to Teasdale?" Borowicz suggests, caving instantly. "He can probably cook you up something safe to use on those, uh...membranes."

Since there's nowhere Cecil has to be until noon, he follows Carlos around instead. He's watched Carlos do science before, and it amazes him how little has changed. Carlos still approaches his experiments with steadfast dedication to the pursuit of answers, mind leaping ahead while Cecil is still trying to decode the idea from three thoughts back. He's never still, always rushing from problem to problem, but when Cecil starts to look overwhelmed, Carlos is willing to stop and just be still for a while, together. Cecil would never have realized what a gift this is without proof of how intrinsic action is to Carlos' nature.

It's no wonder he can never let anything rest, why he's never content to accept and move on. Carlos is a one-man war against the forces of entropy, and _that,_ Cecil thinks with a shock of discovery, is why Carlos is here in the first place. Why Night Vale loves him and gives him shiny puzzles to play with and will never, ever let him go.

The thought that maybe Night Vale wants twenty-odd more years of Carlos' time is the only thing that keeps Cecil from relaxing.

He can't see what Carlos finds so fascinating about all those appalling clock workings; time should be experienced, not observed, and he can't help thinking that stripping it down to its components like this takes some of the magic out of the thing.

"Do you always prefer science, then?" he asks as he watches Carlos braid one tuft of coarse black hair to another, linking two quivering sacks of gelatinous ooze that suddenly burst into a melodic hum.

"Prefer it to what?" Carlos asks distractedly, already reaching for another greyish lump.

"Magic." He tries not to sound plaintive; he knows science is at the core of what Carlos is. It would just be... _nice_ if there were room for both.

Carlos looks up then, curious but preoccupied. "We don't have that where I come from," he says, so matter-of-fact that Cecil knows with awful certainty that he is telling the truth.

"Oh," he says, wondering if this is how Carlos felt when he peered down at the city hidden beneath the bowling alley and felt his perspective lurch decidedly to the left. Carlos has tried to tell Cecil before, but Cecil hasn't _heard._ It's like trying to picture a two-dimensional world, one of the universal constants just _gone,_ and part of him marvels that Carlos is even sane.

The rest of him watches Carlos assemble a horrific, _unsightly_ machine out of dribbles of spare time and realizes Carlos has no idea that what he's doing is a magic as advanced as his science is to a layman. _On par with sorcery,_ Borowicz had warned him, but he'd only thought he understood. He wonders now if it's merely a problem of translation, that having heard only his mother tongue all his life, Carlos now has to filter everything through that familiar syntax before it makes sense.

Becoming a child seems to have opened his mind again, given him the first grunts and growls of an entirely new language, and Cecil finds himself torn between hoping it will stick and not wanting to change a single thing. Carlos, with all his imperfections, is already perfect as he is.

Carlos watches him for a few moments more, just in case he's going to add something else, then goes back to putting the final touches on his unholy machine. By now it's singing softly to itself, a low, intricate round that only grows more hushed as the harmony grows more complex. The entire thing packs neat-but-tight into one of the silver-sided briefcases the lab's more volatile specimens travel in, with a case-wide inch of room in the lid left over.

They gain Morris' attention when Carlos starts taking apart a spare laptop, but Morris only frowns. "What's that doing in there?" he asks, nodding at a tiny lump of grey matter clinging like a stray polyp to the motherboard.

"Computer clock," Carlos says as he gingerly hooks a loop of harvested hair around the polyp's single tooth. He feeds the thin, knotted line carefully through one of the USB ports in the side before closing the laptop back up. It fits inside the case once Carlos lays it flat, closing the whole thing up and latching it down tight.

"And...what exactly have you made there?" Morris asks, eyes lighting up with hope and delight.

Carlos' face reddens like no one has ever approved of his inventions before, and when he answers, he mumbles to the table. "It's, uh...it's a key," he says, one finger rubbing nervously over the edge of the metal case. "If you have a record of the monolith's radiation pattern, you can transmit it through the laptop in reverse and the time goo should...translate it."

Morris grins. "Into something that reverses reversed time?"

Carlos nods hesitantly then hunches one shoulder, voice going small. "It's going to need a lot of power, though, and I don't know how to amplify the, uh, singing. I know it needs to be louder, but there's no goo in speakers."

"The station generators are pretty powerful," Cecil leaps to suggest, the better to _not_ demand the names of everyone who has ever made Carlos doubt himself. Carlos disapproves of blood sacrifice on principle and Cecil tries to be considerate of these things. "I've gotten listener calls from five dimensions and three alternate realities," he says with a shrug, "so the signal has to get boosted pretty far. And if you need to play with sound, well, a radio studio isn't much different from a recording studio when you get down to it."

"Well, boss, you heard the man," Morris says, eyes alight with anticipation. "Let's go do a broadcast!"

It takes a while to get set up, even with five scientists to assist him and Carlos' growing excitement to inspire him. He's the only one who really understands how the station machinery works, so he spends most of the time explaining how to reposition and rewire the studio monitors to focus their pristine playback inside the sound booth itself while keeping one eye on the clock. The programming segment that plays before his show is prerecorded, and once it's over, he needs to be on the air immediately or face the consequences. He has no idea where Intern Harriet is today, but judging from the amount of gristle he finds in the coffee pot, he probably doesn't want to know.

He also learns for certain that his microphone is plugged in...somewhere...though it's hard to say where, as the cord vanishes into the ether about midway down. It will, thankfully, stretch at least as long as he needs it to.

"You sure you don't want to do a test first?" Reilly asks gruffly after the last loudspeaker is angled into place. They're all crammed into the tiny sound booth, but Carlos doesn't seem to mind.

Carlos shakes his head. "I couldn't think of anything that wouldn't die of old age," he explains.

_Steve Carlsburg_ hovers for just a moment on the tip of Cecil's tongue, but they don't have time to lure that jerk into the studio in the first place. Besides, he has faith in Carlos' genius.

"Don't worry," Cecil says, chest tightening at the way Carlos nearly holds his breath to hear what Cecil will say next. The Carlos he knows is embarrassed by Cecil's compliments, but this version lives for the faintest scrap of praise. "You're brilliant," he says, putting all his belief in his eyes. "I know it'll work beautifully."

The spontaneous hugging is begun by Carlos this time, but once he lets Cecil go, rubbing embarrassedly at his eyes, the entire team gets in on it too. Cecil actually has to remind them about the time so they can all rush out and leave Carlos in the sound booth alone.

Carlos' unholy machine--and he knows he'll be teased for calling it that later, but at least the name is accurate--has been plugged into the socket Cecil's microphone would have been if it weren't transdimensional. The booth itself is completely soundproofed, or should be; somehow Management's...er, _voice_ had come through just fine. Ordinarily whatever is said into the mic is broadcast live and direct to the town, but it also goes to the studio monitors: speakers designed for crystal clarity and superb faithfulness of playback. He suspects Carlos' team thinks it's the 'time goo' that will be creating the energy that will change Carlos back, but Cecil has had just enough Gifted classes at NVHS to hear what Carlos is really saying.

The unholy machine really is just a key, one that can translate science into a particular kind of magic. It's the sound, the _song_ of time itself that Carlos is manipulating, and that's where Cecil can help. Who else has access to a microphone that can record the unspeakable mutterings of the disgruntled abyss and a studio that can reproduce it live, down to the last gibber and click? Only Cecil, and he's all too happy to provide.

Through the window Cecil watches Carlos start up the playback, but for once he can't hear anything. The studio monitors have all been moved inside, whatever sound the mic is picking up going no further than the booth, just in case the effects could somehow be spread through the radio waves. Cecil thinks they're being overcautious, but this is Night Vale; even he is sometimes surprised.

Morris has one of the 'counters Carlos designed with him today, and while he looks worried as the thing begins to twitter and squeal, none of them back away from the window. The protective runes drawn and reinked by hundreds of dutiful interns should keep the effects contained to the sound booth, and they all want to see this through. If anything goes wrong--

Cecil sucks in a breath as the light inside the booth distorts, wavering like a mirage. Carlos checks the laptop again and starts, head jerking down to peer at himself as he holds his arms out from his body. It's working, it has to be, only Carlos suddenly starts to scrabble at his clothes, nearly falling over as he simultaneously tries to toe off his shoes and flap his way out of his miniature lab coat.

"Well, that was stupid," Lindquist groans; Cecil can hear the fleshy smack as the man claps a hand over his face, but he can't look away. Carlos is growing.

It looks _incredibly_ painful.

Brown limbs stretch, still skinny at first, which gives him just enough time to work his pants off his hips and down before he can do himself irreparable harm. "A month a second?" Morris muses aloud, voice tense as Carlos trips after all, coming down hard on his ass as he tears the fast-constricting shackles of stiff new denim away from his ankles. There's no room left in Cecil's lungs for another gasp as he watches the skin of Carlos' left knee burst, scab and heal in less time than it took for the shock to hit. Carlos' skin as he rips off his over-stretched T-shirt seems to be crawling, but it's just the flicker of a lifetime of thoughtless wounds rushing past.

Tears roll down Carlos' face as his bones continue to grow, but if he's making any sound through his clenched teeth, Cecil can't hear it. He's filling out now, baby fat melting away, and there's a space of about half a minute where he's so ethereally beautiful Cecil almost doesn't notice the mottling of bruises that never seem to leave his face. _Almost_ doesn't notice. And he _will_ be asking, about the bruises and the knuckles that split and stay raw.

Four and a half minutes in, and the changes slow to more subtle things. Carlos is as tall as he will ever be, and though there's a few blissful seconds where his hair nearly reaches his shoulders, for the most part he looks like the Carlos Cecil knows. His face goes a little leaner, his body a little harder, worry lines beginning to gather at the corners of his eyes and mouth as the hair at his temples is dusted with a faint scattering of grey. Night Vale puts her final touches on him in the bulking of his arm muscles, the last lick of bronze to his skin, and then Carlos is slumping over, gasping for breath.

Cecil is the first to burst into the sound booth, not really caring if he gains a few months, but the unholy machine is silent except for its soothing background hum. Carlos' panting breaths are muffled whimpers of agony, but he manages to grope for Cecil's hand as Cecil hits his knees before him, pulling Carlos into his lap. Lindquist is right; they really should have remembered about the clothes. Magic can't think of everything and usually refuses to try when people won't think for themselves.

"Carlos," Cecil says thickly as the team clusters around, taking readings and shouting questions and generally assuring themselves that their leader is okay. _"Carlos."_

"M'fine," Carlos groans, gripping Cecil's hand tighter. "That...oh, that's weird."

"What?" Morris demands, hands flying over his chirping little machine. "Side effects? Muscle cramps? Molecular instability?"

"I remember being a lot shorter," Carlos says, amused. "And a lot more dressed."

"You remember being a child?" Borowicz asks, lighting up with curiosity. "You didn't seem to remember being an adult."

Carlos frowns and tries to sit up. He seems to have completely forgotten his lack of clothing now that he has a puzzle to focus on, but to be fair, the rest of his team has too. It's entirely possible they've all seen each other in worse states, Night Vale being what it is, but Cecil still feels a tiny bit jealous when he thinks about it.

"No, I...did, I think," Carlos says, wavering a little before steadying himself. "I mean, I wasn't surprised by any of our technology, and...I knew I could trust you. I think the full implications of age regression were just more than my mind could handle at the time."

"And yet you still managed to build a machine to fix yourself." Morris shakes his head with a laugh. "Why am I not surprised?"

Carlos groans. "Oh, God, the _machine._ I don't even know what I was thinking, building that thing out of clock--" He stills, darts a horrified look at Cecil and blurts, "The time!"

Cecil yelps and lunges for the sound board. There's no time to rewire the studio, so he slaps a flailing hand across the switches to turn off the studio monitors and switches the microphone back over to live broadcast. "You can't step in the same river twice," he drones into the mic, breathless and trying hard not to sound it, "but we live in the desert. Welcome to Night Vale."

Carlos is back. He's back and safe and himself again. And he's sitting naked on the sound booth floor.

Cecil knows he's going to get a stern memo from Station Management over all this, but right at this moment, he can't bring himself to care.


End file.
